Starship is intended to span uses ranging from putting huge amounts of stuff, like 40,000 Starlink satellites, each weighing 5X what the first gen satellites we

Starship is intended to span uses ranging from putting huge amounts of stuff, like 40,000 Starlink satellites, each weighing 5X what the first gen satellites weigh, into orbit, and it will go to the Moon and it will ship supplies and people for a Mars colony. And Elon wants it fast. That means anything that would require tearing down and replacing the launch mount is off the table. So, next up is the water cooled steel wedge. You are right that relative to space explorations budgets, a flame trench and a deluge system are small potatoes. But it feels like they are tangled up in sunk costs and a desire to find the fastest solutions.